S-300P/400 News [Russian Strategic Air Defense] #3

Nice, so this is part of the air defences deployed to cover the North Sea Route, so despite using rather old missiles it basically expands Russian Air Defence Network coverage to places it has not really covered before... the far north...

I suspect as production of the S-350 ramps up the S-300PS missiles it uses will be upgraded and replaced by newer missiles, but in the mean time those S-300s are potent missiles anyway...

It looks like we are heading for a world where even the Saudis, let alone anyone else, can't afford US weapon pricing.

Not only can't they afford the price... they can't afford the cost when it fails like that attack on Saudi oil assets... previously the actual protection they are paying for is the protection Kuwait and Saudi Arabia had in the 1990s when the Iraqi invasion resulted in a US attack and 20 odd years of economic isolation and sanctions against the country that threatened them... but now they are running out of sanctions and ideas and their weapons really don't work when you only have a few pieces of the chess set and you really don't know how to play for yourself...

I'd like to see the same from them written around the US equivalent, the Patriot.

Well if they are consistent they would have to mention that what they said about the S-400 applies to the Patriot as well, except the Americans have basically made the Patriot and otherwise rely on aircraft for defense making the Patriot terribly vulnerable to standoff munitions... their short range air defence systems consist of Stinger mountings on Humvees and Chapparal... which is basically a ground launched Sidewinder.

The S-500 wont replace the S-400 just like the S-350 didn't replace the S-400... all three will be used together or on their own (ie a strategic target that might be attacked by powerful ballistic missiles like a military port or major air field might have S-350, S-400, and S-500, but a smaller airfield might not have the S-500. A smaller installation might only have S-350, or S-400 with TOR or Pantsir supporting it.

The talk about the threat of low flying targets is amusing because such threats are equally dangerous to Patriot but the crew operating Patriot have to anticipate the direction enemy missiles will be approaching from, because the short range at which low flying targets will appear at means no chance to turn the launchers toward targets coming from unexpected directions. A glance at a satellite image will tell you which direction the Patriot missile launchers are oriented and if pointing the wrong way the time and energy lost turning 180 degrees after launch means the minimum engagement range for the patriot might be increased past the detection range in that direction for a low flying target so low flying cruise missiles could be totally safe...

Then we get the genius... these missiles cannot defeat HATO on their own and need to be part of an IADS to be effective... amazing... and obvious.

This is amusing though...

Countries that are middlingly successful in using SAMs include Turkey, where the S-400 is not backed up by significant numbers of effective SAM systems but still proves very beneficial because Turkey's primary air defense — like that of many other NATO countries — is actually centered on its fighter aircraft.

So what they are trying to say is that a viable alternative to an IADS with layers of SAMs and radars and sensors is to use some fighter aircraft and some AWACS aircraft.... but hang on... at the start of this article it pointed out that the S-400 doesn't carry that many missiles so it would be easy to overwhelm... can't you say the same thing about a HATO defence based around a few AWACS aircraft that are terribly vulnerable too? Especially when there is no plan B air defence...

Russia has A-50Us and are introducing A-100s and they are building Su-35s and MiG-35s and Su-30s and also Su-57s and MiG-31s and they are including those aircraft into their IADS... all part of the VKO aerospace defence forces...

While Syria's S-300s could theoretically cause some damage to the Israeli aircraft that constantly raid the country, they wouldn't survive for long after firing their first missile.

Ultimately, long-range SAMs like the S-400 are no miracle weapons; even the most effective IADS is liable to be overwhelmed if under constant attack without reinforcement. But if properly supported, they can certainly play a decisive role, especially against more limited attacks.

Syrian S-300s and its IADS is the only thing keeping Israeli aircraft from violating their airspace on a daily basis like they did before they got it.

An IADS is vastly more complex and costly to set up than an airforce, but Syria has Russia to provide them with a fully operational system that is connected to the Russian system that has been operating there while the Russian forces have been there... so mistakes don't happen again.

Suggestions that Israel could take out the Syria AD if they wanted to is bravado... I really don't think they could, and certainly not without taking some very very serious losses in the process...

I mean if standoff weapons and stealth were really the fundamental problems of the S-400 then it would be business as usual for the Israeli air force in Syria because they have stand off weapons and they have the pinnacle of stealth fighter technology in the form of the F-35... they should be able to do as they please in Syria with Syria only operating S-300 and other older systems... but they seem to have to mount fairly large attacks to get one or two weapons to slip through to targets and most of the time nothing seems to make it through...

If they wanted the S-400 for ballistic target threats then THAAD or PAC-3 Patriot should have been their go to systems you would think... perhaps it was not just about ballistic targets?

And the reasons would have to be very important for them to jeopardise their F-35 contracts... both the 100 odd aircraft they were buying but the 3,500 odd they were making components for...

Syria didn't have an integrated air defence network... very few countries actually do.

The air defences of Syria used to be based on air defence units that might have had some sort of centralised warning system but were largely on their own to deal with targets they detect.

An IADS is a system like anything else... the first generation ones were simple and not amazing... if you have seen a documentary about the Battle of Britain you will have seen large maps or clear boards with maps and airfield locations and where enemy aircraft are plotted and decisions are made about which aircraft from which airfield should be launched to engage based on an estimate of what their likely target might be.

That is what an IADS is... it is a management system where information is captured and evaluated from sensors and assets like radar arrays and aircraft communications and ground based listening stations etc etc and the information is collated on what planes and guns etc are available and their location... combined with commanders able to determine attacks taking place and what resources will be needed to stop such attacks... send up too many planes and you risk not having enough for the next wave if it comes. Don't send enough and your forces will be overwhelmed and cut up and their bombers might get through to their targets...

The point is that before the cowardly Israeli attack that used a Russian plane as cover for one of their own attacks on Syrian territory that resulted in that Russian plane getting accidently shot down by a Syrian SAM launched at the Israeli planes, the Syrian air defence units had no idea what they were looking at when they looked at the blips on their screens. An IADS numbers all targets in the air and where possible identifies them and continues to track them while they are visible... if the track is identified as hostile and starts to behave suspiciously or appears to be heading somewhere it shouldn't be the command can allocate a suitable response like activating a nearby SAM site or send aircraft to the area. An IADS means you can now send aircraft because they will be visible to the local SAM operators as friendly...

An IADS doesn't need state of the art super missiles to be effective... the IADS in itself makes any collection of air defence assets hundreds or even thousands of times more effective.... that is why they are called force multipliers...

"At the Ashuluk practice range in the Astrakhan Region, the teams of an anti-aircraft missile regiment from the Leningrad air defence unit of the Western Military District live-fired S-400 'Triumph' surface-to-air missiles against air targets... During their combat duty, they detected and struck target missiles that simulated the nominal enemy's modern and future air attack weapons", the statement from the military reads.

https://sputniknews.com/russia/202004141078945272-watch-russian-s-400-triumph-missile-system-in-action-taking-down-enemy-projectiles/

Upgraded S-300PM2 ‘Favorit’ surface-to-air missile systems shielded key infrastructural facilities of the Voronezh Region in southwestern Russia drills

https://tass.com/defense/1148423

All these S-400 systems will be upgraded to S-500 standards later on. No, they will not have all of the functionality of the
S-500, but they will likely be able to use ABM canisters. A real ABM system needs to have a vast number of launchers
to be effective. A few boutique S-500 systems is not going to cut it.

I rather expect the S-500 system will consist of customised very long range radars able to look up as well as a long way away, but also much larger missile cannisters to hold the bigger longer ranged missiles.

The S-500 will never operate on its own as a separate battery, I suspect a regiment of S-500 missiles will be attached to an S-400 battery along with the extra radar and control vehicles a bit like an S-350 can be attached to provide shorter range numbers defence from cruise missile attack.

I suspect S-500 will be attached to S-400 batteries near major cities and naval ports and major airfields first along with strategic asset locations too, and the navalised version will also be fitted to Cruisers, aircraft carriers, and possibly down to destroyer sized ships so they have more than a dozen ships with them.

Of course being fully mobile they could be sent to where they are needed by aircraft or ship... a battery in Cuba would be interesting...

It is an option to make them take notice... the fact that the INF treaty was a good thing for their EU allies meant nothing in the end... it is important to know which buttons to push and to have such buttons ready when needed.

You get through to the spoilt kid by finding out what matters to them and then using your control of that thing to control them.

They love KFC then behave for a month and we can go...

Discussion of last days moved to the related topic:

https://www.russiadefence.net/t4899-s-400-sam-for-india